


Please Stay, You Chronic Martyr

by knaveofmogadore



Category: The Lorien Legacies - Pittacus Lore
Genre: Adamus Goode, Canon Compliant, Fix-it fic, Hurt/Comfort, Jadam - Freeform, M/M, Missing Scene Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 01:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knaveofmogadore/pseuds/knaveofmogadore
Summary: John tries to convince Adam to stay with the life that he's built after the war, and him.Aka; That Time When John Smith found out his friend is voluntarily going to Naughty Alien Prison In The Arctic and we all cried because the epilogue was the worst and yet the most in character thing Adamus did in United As One





	Please Stay, You Chronic Martyr

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is canon compliant in the way that we don't know how this happened and less in the way that it is actually alluded to in any way, although I assume John didn't take it quietly.

Adam was released from the hospital on September twelfth. He was released into Malcolm Goode’s custody on October fifteenth. On October seventeenth, Malcolm Goode called John Smith in tears to tell him that Adam had called General Lawson to politely decline his pardon and that he should come to say his goodbyes. 

John pulls his beanie further down over his ears. For some reason the autumn chill had begun to bother him more once he landed in Paradise. As he walks down the street to Sam’s old house, John allows the situation to sink in. Adamus, brave, honorable, intelligent, stupid Adamus is lumping himself with the rest of his people. He is giving up his chance at a free life, a home, a family, and leaving his friends behind. He is going to leave _him_ behind. The thought puts a sick, tangled knot in John’s stomach. 

Fallen leaves scrape along the ground in the wind that John can barely feel. It gives him a chill anyway as Sam’s old house comes into view at the end of the street. It will not be Sam’s house for much longer. Malcolm was offered a spot at the academy, and they are packing up in a few months and moving to California. John doubts Malcolm will stay that long if Adam leaves. 

John’s hands shake as he rings the doorbell, from anger, from fear, from nervousness. His stomach cramps when Malcolm opens the door. The man looked ragged. His hair was tufted and tangled, as if he had been pulling it, and John noticed more grey strands than the last time they had met. His crow’s feet seemed deeper, frown lines had formed, and John noted with a pang that his eyes were still wet. Malcolm stepped aside and let him into the house without a word. 

The door closed with a click and then there was deafening, charged silence. Even with as oblivious as he is, John could feel the grief hanging over the house. One of Malcolm’s sons was out traveling the world with his girlfriend, running away from his problems and having the time of his life without a single phone call. His other son is running headlong into his own nightmares and not looking back. If John were Malcolm, he would have given up too. They stare at each other, neither one of them knowing the right words to say. Malcolm breaks the connection to wipe away at the tears in his eyes with a ragged sigh. His next words are muffled by the hand covering his face.

“He’s the second door on the left,” he tells John. 

John turns away from Malcolm and walks to the back of the house, down the hallway with heavy footsteps to the sounds of someone throwing his life away. Adam’s back is to the door, and he is shoving warm looking clothes into a duffle on his bed. John knocks on the door frame so that Adam turns to the sound.

“Mal-” Adam starts as he turns, then stops when he sees John. He blinks, then his exhausted frown turns into a darker scowl. “If he sent you here to convince me to stay, tell him he failed.”

His hair is a tousled mess atop his head. There are deep bags under his tired coal eyes, which are red with the tears that made tracks down his cheeks. His cheeks are flushed with crying, and John now knows that he is part of an ongoing argument. 

"I can't believe that you're doing this,” John says as he steps into the room towards Adam. Something in Adam’s eyes stops him from going farther than two paces. There are walls there, made of cold Mogadorian indifference.

"What is there to doubt,” Adam asks, his voice devoid of emotion even as he wipes a tear away with the back of his palm, “My people need me, so I'm going to be there for them."

Adam turns back to shoving things in his bag, content that he had gotten the last word. The only sounds in the room then were Adam’s clothes rumpling in the duffle and John’s heavy breaths. The emptiness feels like dismissal, a stinging slap in the face after everything that they had been through. 

John grabs Adam’s forearm, his fingers clenched hard enough to bruise, his knuckles white. Adam drops the pocket knife he had been holding and turns to face John.

He glares, teeth bared, and says in a dangerously low voice, “Let me go, John.”

John ignores his words and focuses on his eyes. He can see, past the anger, the barest trace of fear, the wetness of tears he is holding back. John’s hands begin to shake, angry tremors that loosen his grip.

"Adam you have a _chance_ ,” John says, close to shouting, “you're just going to throw that away?" 

"I can leave whenever I please, John. My /people/ have a chance, my not helping them would be wasting it." 

John almost laughs at the absurdity of it all. Adam cares so little for himself it hurts. Deep down John knows that he has already lost. Adam, his Adam, will never back down from anything if it meant that it would make someone’s life better. He felt almost selfish for trying to keep him from it. 

John flinches at the crack in his own voice as he speaks, "They're going to destroy you.”

Adam jerks his arm away from John. John’s hand hovers in place for seconds that feel like hours, aching to reach out but not daring to touch Adam when John knows he left fingerprints on his skin. Adam watches it before looking up at John’s face. 

"You should give me more credit, I'll survive," he growls. 

"They're going to hurt you."

Adam laughs, a choked, almost pained sound forced out of his throat. "What else is new,” he scoffs. “I’ve really lived a charmed life, John.” 

John flinches at Adam’s tone. He is taken aback at what he hears in his voice, the cracking of swallowed tears and stinging slap of something he has never known Adam to feel. His voice shakes with anger, but it trembles more with fear. The knife in John’s chest twists deeper. 

"Adam.."

Adam stays tense, glaring back in the face of John’s concern. Three, four, five beats pass in silence. The longer it drags the more John wants to flee the room, the harder it is for him to breathe in the air thick with the tension and their frustration. Then, Adam closes his eyes, and he sighs as his shoulders drop. He seems to deflate before John’s eyes, and John dares to hope that maybe, just this once, he won the argument. Adam turns and abandons the last of his packing, picking up the discarded knife and tucking it into his boot so that he could sit in its place on the bed. When he speaks it’s quieter, raspy but gentle, and John strains and leans in closer to hear.

"You came here to convince me to abandon them, you know I can't do that."

The knife shatters, and John feels as if his chest is filled with shards of ice. His breath stops, and he shakes with the effort to swallow his own tears.

"You're too honorable for your own good,” John spits, then flinches at the harshness of his own words.

Adam closes his eyes against them and wraps his arms around his middle. His shoulders curl and his head drops. "I’ll be ok, John."

"I can't believe that."

Adam forces himself to take a deep breath, in through the nose and, choked and harsh, out of his mouth. His shoulders round, making him look like almost like a distressed child. If he were smaller, John thinks, before Adam’s chastising “John,” brings him back to reality. 

John grasps his shoulder and pushes back, forcing Adam to lean back and look up at him. His hand shakes against Adam’s skin and burns him to his bones. 

"You fought your whole life to live in peace and you're just going to throw that away?”

Adam studies John’s face, almost as if he were measuring how much more John could and would push the issue. He finds his answer in John’s eyes, a stubborn steel blue and narrowed. He forces his face to relax in response. He knows that their last conversation may be an argument, but he refuses to be the last one who screams. 

"I have to,” he answers, his tone so resigned it surprises even him.

His cool response seems to only fuel John’s fire. His eye twitches and he drops his hand from Adam’s shoulder, stepping away so that he would not be in his face when he shouted, "No, you don't! There’s no great plan or dead alien that says you have to go! No-”

Adam cuts John in the middle of his tirade and winces at the cracking in his own voice, "You don't understand, John."

John scrubbs away tears forming in his eye with the back of his hand. He takes a short ragged breath, and laughs it out. There is no humor in it, only the edges of hysteria. "You're right, I _don't_. Explain it to me."

Adam takes a deep breath and forces himself to relax his jaw. He sits on the bed and lightly pats the place beside him while looking pointedly at John. John glares back, looking between Adam’s calm expression and the unused sheets of the bed. He sits stiffly across from him and waits for him to speak. 

"When you first met me, you didn't know what to make of me. You didn't trust me. Our first real conversation was an argument, during which you questioned my advice and my motivations. You trust me now, John. You care about me."

John’s eyes had widened during Adam’s speech. A few tears now rolled freely down his cheeks, and he used them as an excuse to duck his head now and avoid Adam’s searching gaze. 

"...That's right,” he agrees, of course he agrees, he would never not care about Adamus, “What's your point?”

Adam clenches his hands in his lap to quell the trembling in his fingers. He presses his fists down on his leg to keep it from shaking. His voice is barely above a whisper and yet it still digs deep into John’s heart and soul with every word. "My people deserve the chance I had, the chance that you gave me, the chance that I gave Rex. They deserve redemption and a home."

John rests his hands over Adam’s shaking fists. His eyes widen and then fill with tears that he blinks back as he stares down at his lap. One escapes and splatters on the back of John’s hand.

Softly, he asks, "..Why do you need to be the one who goes?"

Adam turns his head to face John. He is close, so close that he can almost feel his breath on his face. The air around Adam feels warm, much warmer than it ever should feel in the middle of autumn in Ohio, and he savors every second of it. 

"Who else will?"

"Please, Adam."

His pleading look is so intense that Adam can no longer look back. He turns back to the hands clasped in his lap. John’s hand, always warm and strong to his fingertips, covered in calluses from years of training and war just like his. Adam takes his hands away only to tangle them with John’s and squeeze. 

Without John’s blues in his vision talking is easier, and it becomes possible for Adam to tell him no one last time. 

"I'm sorry, John. I can't rob them of this chance."

More tears fall to their hands as Adam loses the willpower to hold them back any longer. John does not move, does not speak, and finally, Adam thinks, seems to understand that there is no changing his mind. After a few minutes John takes his hands back, leaving Adam’s feeling frozen without them. It only lasts a moment before John’s heat comes closer, skin to skin as he wraps his arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. Adam leans into his side and buries his face in John’s chest. He grasps at his shirt with his shaking hands and curls closer, letting John chase the cold away with his embrace if only for a few more minutes. They sit there like that, in the silence, for an eternity and thirty minutes.

There is a knock on the doorframe, and without looking John knows that it’s the one sent to take Adam away. Away from him, and his family, and the life he worked so hard for in the first place. 

Out of reflex and desperation John tightens his embrace. Adam, he can tell, is having trouble pulling away, but still he does. John follows him to his feet, and watches helplessly as Adam gathers his bag and himself. 

“...Please don’t leave me.” A beat, a mere second of hesitation, before John adds on, “Us.”

Adam pulls his bag onto his shoulder. He opens his mouth to reply to John, but all that comes out is a sigh. He swallows thickly and tries again, “It’s not about leaving you, it’s just something I need to do.”

“Please.”

Adam starts to turn away and says, “I’m sorry, John. It’s time to go.”

John grabs his wrist, gently this time, his grip loose because he already knows that he has lost, and weakly pleads again. He looks back, the fondest smile on his face and pain in his eyes. 

“You will survive this too, John. You can be ok, I believe that you can be okay.”

John shakes his head, “You’re wrong, Adam,” his voice cracks and another tear slips free,” For once, you’re wrong.”

Adam takes the chance and kisses John’s cheek. The kiss is chaste, barely a whisper of his lips across his skin, but John’s heart pounds in his chest. 

“So that you know I’ll come back,” he mumbles against his skin. John’s eyes flutter closed and his shivers. When he opens them again, Adam has drifted away. Another blink, and he’s gone. 

Something in John shifts, and without thinking he runs after them. In his shock and awe Adam and the agent had already made it past Malcolm and into the front lawn, almost to the car. 

“Wait!”

The agent keeps walking for a few more steps, but Adam stills immediately. He turns, his expression pained, and starts to say John’s name. Maybe he thinks that John still won’t let him go. John shushes him with a fast kiss that not only shuts Adam up but makes him freeze completely. When he pulls back, John’s cheeks are red back to his ears. 

He takes his hat out of his pocket and offers it to Adam, who takes it gently and silently, clearly still in shock. He runs his thumbs over the soft woolen fabric almost reverently. 

“Why are you giving this to me,” he asks, looking up at him. 

John grins back in spite of the tears threatening to fall. “If I can’t stop you, I can at least make sure you’re not going to freeze to death, right?”

Adam’s lips twist into a smile against his will, then a grin and then he laughs. The sound speeds up John’s heart and awakens butterflies in his stomach. It is sweet, a giggle that sounds like clinking glass and every happy thing John could think of. 

He looks once more down at the hat in his hands, then pulls it on. This time, their kiss is final, and John does not stop him from walking away. The sound of car doors closing will haunt him for the rest of his life. John stands there in the Goode’s driveway and watches the street long after the car, and Adam, is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> THIS FIC ALSO TOOK ME SIX MONTHS TO WRITE BECAUSE FOR SOME WEIRD AND CRAZY REASON I HATE WRITING ARGUMENTS A LOT I WONDER WHY THAT IS. So that's why the style changes in small ways halfway through. It's the simple fault of development because I wrote things inbetween and practiced then came back to it.


End file.
